Conventional air conditioner systems employ cooling and heating coils positioned in the supply air column, or ducting, so that the air flowing through the conditioner is in constant direct contact with the usual coil fins. And, this is the case whether or not there is a demand for cooling or heating, or ventilation only. As a result, there is a constant and persistent pressure drop as a result of air friction through the cooling-heating coil, and this feature manifests itself as energy consumed. It is to be understood that this pressure drop feature is to be found in conventional cooling and heater ducting, refrigerated air conditioner ducting, and heat-pump ducting etc.
According to the foregoing, it is a general object of this invention to minimize the pressure drop in air conditioning ducting, in order to reduce operating energy costs. It is also an object of this invention to provide primary sensible cooling by means of the phase change in water subjected to the heat from incoming outside air, all without the use of external energy. Significantly, electrical (or other) power is not required to attain said phase change.
The aforesaid primary sensible cooling is not intended to fulfill the total cooling demand and therefore it is an object of this invention to provide secondary cooling that does not increase pressure drop in the supply air ducting. This is accomplished by removing the secondary cooling or heating from the supply air duct, so that there can be no air friction loss in the supply air delivery to a conditioned space. In practice, the secondary cooling is by means of a downsized mechanical refrigeration unit, chosen to meet the cooling demand of the particular space to be conditioned. A feature of this energy minimizer concept is a section of the supply air duct that opens laterally into and from a refrigeration unit. This specialized section of the supply air duct functions as a mixing chamber or plenum. Another feature is that air recirculation through the secondary cooling refrigeration unit is independent from supply air circulation. Accordingly, operation of the secondary cooling refrigeration unit has no adverse effect upon air circulation in the supply air duct.
This energy minimizer concept departs from convention by placing a secondary cooling coil outside the confines of a supply air duct and in parallel therewith, and tapped into the duct so that its refrigeration (or heater) coil is not in the direct supply air flow. The primary sensible cooling is by means of phase change of water used as a refrigerant, and this is supplemented on demand for cooling by the secondary cooling refrigeration unit that removes a portion of the air flowing through the mixing-plenum section of the supply air duct, and which further cools and dehumidifies (or heats) said air, and then returns said air into the supply air duct. The supply air duct volume and velocity is not affected.
It is an object of this invention to provide water as a refrigerant to sensibly cool a moving column of air. This is accomplished by employing a heat exchanger that separates two columns of air, one a dry supply air column and the other a wet exhaust air column. In accordance with this invention sensible heat is transfered from the dry side supply air column and into the wet side air column by means of a phase change in a thin film of water refrigerant contacting the wet side of a heat exchange wall, or walls, said refrigerant film adhering intimately to said wall, or walls, by electrophoresis. This phase change caused by adsorption of heat results in chilling through the evaporative process of the water refrigerant which is then exhausted with air as latent heat. Moisture laden refrigerant air does not come into contact with the sensibly cooled supply air. In practice, the refrigerant and supply air source is outside air.